The Problem Most Companies Face
Most companies operate on tribal knowledge. Processes exist in people's heads, not in documented systems. When someone leaves, their knowledge leaves with them. When something goes wrong, there is no standard to compare against.
What is an Operations Portal?
An Operations Portal is a comprehensive digital backbone that documents every business process, from lead capture to HR hiring. At Golden Sparrow Trading, I designed one covering 11 business phases with 280+ workflow nodes and 45+ standard operating procedures.
The 11 Business Phases
The portal covers the entire business lifecycle: Lead Capture, Quotation, Contract Management, Procurement, Warehouse Operations, Delivery, Invoicing, After-Sales, HR & Administration, Finance, and Strategic Planning. Each phase has detailed process flows, responsible parties, approval matrices, and exception handling procedures.
Why It Matters
Before the portal, process time for a typical procurement cycle was about 5 days with a 25% error rate. After implementation, it dropped to 1.5 days with less than 5% errors. Documentation went from zero SOPs to 45+ comprehensive procedures.
The ERP Connection
The Operations Portal became the blueprint for our Odoo ERP implementation. Instead of configuring ERP modules in isolation, every module was mapped to documented processes. This is the right way to implement ERP — process first, technology second.
Getting Started
You do not need to build all 11 phases at once. Start with your most painful process, document it thoroughly, get buy-in, and expand from there. The first SOP is the hardest. By the tenth, you have a template and a methodology.